Edtech Business

ASK AMIRA: Amira Learning, a Napa, California-based startup behind an AI-powered reading assistant, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Vertical Venture Partners. The company claims its reading tool, which assess students on oral reading fluency and offers intervention supports, is built with technology based on artificial intelligence research from Carnegie Mellon University...

ON COURSE TO MERGE: The international media and education company Bertelsmann is acquiring OnCourse Learning, a Wisconsin-based online education provider, for an amount in the “mid-nine-digit-euro range,” according to a news release — in other words, for hundreds of millions of euros...

MODERNIZING MONTESSORI: Higher Ground Education, an organization that aims to expand Montessori education globally and bring it into the mainstream, has acquired Montessorium, a South Dakota-based education startup with whom its mission and vision “could not be more consonant,” Higher Ground CEO Ray Girn said in a prepared statement...

CARNEGIE CARNIVORE: Carnegie Learning wasted no time. Just a week after its merger with New Mountain Learning, Carnegie has acquired Mondo Publishing, a provider of print and digital workbooks focused on K-5 literacy.

CASH FOR TEXTS: Perlego, a U.K.-based company, which offers subscription access to a library of content, including digital textbooks, has raised $4.8 million in funding, reports TechCrunch. Venture fund ADV led the round, with participation from existing angel investors such as Simon Franks, Alex Chesterman and Peter Hinssen...